Breakfast @ Denny's

When people talk about hip hop and jazz you always hear the same old names being bandied about ... Now don't get me wrong ... Guru's whole Jazzmatazz Project was absolutely seminal as was Digable Planets' debut album Reachin' (A New Refutation of Time and Space) and I don't have a bad word to say about The Roots and the importance of everything they have done especially some of their early recordings where if you look at the liner notes you will see the likes of Steve Coleman and Cassandra Wilson popping up on the occasional track ... But what annoys me is that no one apart from those who really know ever mention Branford Marsalis ... Not only is Branford the most phenomenal saxophonist but this is a man who stood up to the purists and really went out there and fuzed the two genres ... And what's even more amazing about him is that he didn't even need to enlist the help of rappers to do this ... He just went out there and killed it with his horn ... Take a listen to Breakfast @ Denny's .. With Premier handling the production duties and scratching like the world was about to stop turning on its axis and with a little help from Jay Leno, Branford beautifully recounts the absurb racism experienced by a group of African American secret service agents at a Denny's restaurant with his horn ... This is what hip hop and jazz is really all about and if you don't know it I suggest you go and check out Buckshot LeFonque before you embarrass yourself any further ...